Gov. Jeb Bush signed a death warrant Friday for convicted slayer Danny Rolling, whose 1990 killing spree of five college students terrorized the Gainesville area.

The 52-year-old Rolling pleaded guilty in 1994 to fatally stabbing the students in their homes at the start of the 1990 fall semester. The deaths sent the area into a panic with many students rushing home from the college town. Those who stayed traveled together on city streets while others fortified their homes with extra locks and alarms as officers and news media descended on the area to find the killer.

Rumblings that Bush intended to sign Rolling's death warrant had been circulating through Tallahassee on Friday.

State Attorney Bill Cervone confirmed Friday afternoon that the Attorney General's Office had contacted him to report that the warrant was official.

Rolling's execution is scheduled for Oct. 25.

Cervone said that after years of appeals repeatedly turned down by state and federal courts, Rolling's case needed to move forward.

"For somebody who did these horrible things and admitted it so many years ago, it's time," Cervone said.

Rolling was convicted of five murders, three counts of sexual battery and three counts of armed burglary of a dwelling with battery. He broke into the students' homes, surprising them as they either slept or arrived home. The five were stabbed to death, and some of the bodies were mutilated or posed.

Ricky Paules, Tracy Paules' mother, said she was "thrilled" by the signing of the warrant.

"I knew justice would be done," said Paules of St. Augustine. "I've been waiting to do this for 16 years. I hate to sound coarse about it, but that's the way I feel.

"When Rolling entered his guilty plea instead of going to trial, some had speculated his execution date wouldn't be postponed by lengthy appeals. But it has been 12 years since Circuit Judge Stan Morris imposed five death sentences on Rolling.

State Sen. Rod Smith of Alachua, a former Democratic gubernatorial candidate, was the prosecutor on the Rolling case. He said he never thought the appeals process in the Rolling case would last this long. After all, he said, Rolling confessed to the murder, there was DNA evidence and he tortured his victims.

Some of the victims' parents have died before being able to see Rolling's execution date named, Ricky Paules said. "I'm sorry some of the parents aren't around to be here at this moment.

"Both Ricky Paules and Dianna Hoyt, the stepmother of victim Christa Hoyt, said they would attend Rolling's execution.

"I don't think there's any closure for something like this," said Hoyt of Alachua County. "But there is gratification to know that he can no longer think about the killings and get pleasure out of thinking about what he did. I really do believe that he deserves to be put to death; I want it to be over.

"Christa's father, Gary Hoyt, who was 63 when he died in 2000 from heart trouble and stress, was hurt that he couldn't live to see his daughter's killer be brought to justice, Dianna Hoyt said.

"It's been such a long time and things like this shouldn't have to take so long," Dianna Hoyt said. "There isn't a day that goes by that you don't think about it.

"Whether Rolling or his attorneys will succeed with an appeal remains to be seen.

"To me, there are no substantive issues," Cervone said.

However, he added, "There will, I am sure, be a flurry of attempts to get judicial relief."

Carolyn Snurkowski, assistant attorney general for the state of Florida, said Rolling has exhausted his state and federal appeals. But, she added, the possibility exists he could challenge the lethal injection method of execution or find a new course of appeal.

"We just have to wait to see what's going to happen next," Snurkowski said.

Smith agreed there is a real chance Rolling could delay the execution by challenging lethal injection.

The case of Clarence Hill, the condemned cop killer who was executed in Florida this week, opened the door to claims the method constitutes cruel punishment. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled such challenges can be made under federal civil rights laws, though the court allowed Hill's execution to go forward before his case could proceed.

Monticello attorney Baya Harrison, who represented Rolling on his appeals, said the courts will again be petitioned to stop the execution. But he wasn't sure how effective they will be."We're going to leave no stone unturned," he said. However, he added that none of the appellate issues have been met with success.

Rolling has argued over the effectiveness of his legal representation leading up to his plea and said the case should have been tried outside of Alachua County, where residents had been traumatized by the slayings.

"With the way the legal system is today and the fact that we have been through so many courts, frankly we're very concerned. Our options are just fewer and fewer," Harrison said.

Rolling's defense attorneys plan to contact attorneys in Gainesville who previously represented Rolling and Hill's Lake City attorney Todd Doss for advice on how to proceed on the case.

Considering an argument challenging the lethal injection issue, Harrison said, "It doesn't seem terribly hopeful in that Mr. Doss, who represented Mr. Hill, he put up a tremendous effort to obtain hearings for Mr. Hill. Even though the U.S. Supreme Court said that he had a right to raise the issue, they never granted him a hearing.

"Rolling is housed at Union Correctional Institution near Raiford. He had previously been imprisoned for robbery in other states, including Alabama and Mississippi. He had said he killed a person for every year he spent in prison. Although never convicted, he also was accused of three murders in Louisiana.

In a 17-page letter sent to The Associated Press in 2000, Rolling attributed the student murders to abuse he as a child and his treatment in prison.

"A mangy dog gets more consideration than what I received in Parchman (a Mississippi prison). Imagine ... being forced to dwell in a prison cell that floods out two to three times a week with putrefied raw sewage, and having to exist in such filth for over eight months till it drives you crazy as a loon.

"He ended the letter by saying, "Any complaint I may have pales in comparison to the terrible wrong I inflicted upon good people. I stand in the shadow of their suffering. If it is to be mercy, then I shall be eternally grateful. If it to be the wrath of vengeance, then God grant me the strength to face what I must. For I owe a debt I cannot repay ... not even with my own life."

Rutherford executionOn Friday, Bush also set a new execution date for Arthur Rutherford, 56, who was convicted of drowning a Milton woman in her bathtub in 1985. Rutherford had previously been scheduled to be executed in January, but the U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay. His execution is set for Oct. 18.